Singularity University | Singularity University acquires the Singularity Summit and Singularity Institute brand

December 6, 2012

According to an SU statement, the acquisition furthers SU’s founding goal to provide the tools and thinking necessary to solve humanity’s greatest challenges, while SI transitions to a more research-focused organization. It also enables SU to broaden its global offerings to include an expanded Summit, designed around the tracks of study currently offered at SU: AI and Robotics, Energy & Environmental Systems; Biotechnology and Bioinformatics; Medicine & Neuroscience; Networks and Computing, Nanotechnology, Entrepreneurship, and Design.

“The mission of Singularity University is to equip leaders with awareness about the disruptive implications and opportunities of accelerating technologies and to help empower them to become high-impact innovators,” said CEO Rob Nail.

“Our acquisition of the Singularity Summit will be a valuable asset as we continue to enrich our educational content and innovation pipeline, and expand our global network. We are also proud to support ongoing serious research on the implications of AI, for which SI is well respected.”

The Singularity Summit was founded in 2006 by Ray Kurzweil, also a cofounder of Singularity University and its current Chancellor, and Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal and a leading thinker and venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.

The Singularity Institute is one of the world’s leading research institutes devoted to studying the societal consequences of advanced Artificial Intelligence. The organization promotes awareness of the potential consequences of advanced artificial intelligence, both positive and negative, and funds technical research intended to ensure that the creation of advanced artificial intelligence has a positive outcome.

Singularity University’s mission is to assemble, educate, and inspire a new generation of leaders in business, science, finance, and government who strive to understand and use exponentially advancing technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges. Since 2009, SU has hosted students and industry leaders from more than 70 countries at its campus at NASA Research Park, Moffett Field, CA. Corporate Partners include Autodesk, Cisco, Credit Union Roundtable, ePlanet Ventures, GE, Genentech, Google, Intelius, Kauffman Foundation, Nokia, Steelcase, and Triple Ring Technologies.

Talk about the power of memes! The ‘Singularity’ is nothing but a big honkin’ meme. People seem to forget that and treat these things – mere words and concepts – as if they’re real, something solid and consequential. They could as well be pages ripped from scifi books!

This is evidence that even the smartest human minds are shockingly easily taken over by memes.

True, but the same could be said of the news reported on this site – and they’re not memes – this stuff is happening right now.

Trust me, I do try to re-examine my beliefs as much as I can. My belief in a Singularity is one that perhaps gets re-examined more than any other I hold, because I realise just how seductive it is.

I recently watched a talk by Douglas R. Hofstadter called “Trying to Muse Rationally About the Singularity Scenario”. In it, he tries to counter (well, cast doubt upon) some of the points Ray makes in The Singularity Is Near – it was like watching Ray being mauled by a teddy bear – very weak! However, where I was in complete agreement with him was when he implored the scientific community to respond to the claims being made about the Singularity. I, like Douglas, feel that there should be a proper debate on this issue with those best placed to offer robust counter arguments. I want the Singularity rigorously challenged by someone who’ll be as meticulous as Ray in preparing their case.

At the moment, all we get are a few snorts of derision from the naysayers, but no reasons given as to why the Singularity is such a ridiculous notion. If there’s a debate to be had, let’s have it.

By the way, are there major differences between Americans, perhaps East-West, North-South, in other words, are there “many Americas” (if you leave out the ethnic, non-American sub-cultures)?

I recall meeting people from Texas, Pennsylvania, New York (upstate), California, Washington, Florida, Michigan and Illinois. All Americans have seemed more or less the same. I couldn’t tell the difference.

@Jakob and Mr.X: there are strong differences in character in the US. It’s hard to go through all the differences. One of the best ways to see this is to look at the resent election. Check out what state voted for which candidate and you’ll see the biggest difference. There really is no specific American trait. We are a melting pot of many cultures. You can find strong ethnic communities in every state, for just about every country. Part of what makes us be Americans are these at times opposing influences. I’m from the east coast, in the New York area. I like it because of NY cities cosmopolitan vibe. At any time you can go and talk to a tourist and get a good sense of the rest of the world. I would recommend living anywhere between Washington DC, Philidelphia, to Boston, but there are lots of good place to live in the rest of the country. We really do try and be inclusive of other cultures and lifestyles. It’s part of ” the persuit of happiness” ideal we tend to promote. It’s your life to live, as long as you don’t harm others you can pretty much do what you want.

While I recommend -not- living in this area of the United States unless you want to
A. Never see what the night sky has looked like on this planet for billions of years.
B. Never be able to enjoy open spaces and expanses of free, public land.
C. Never have the ability to be more than a few dozen feet from the next Homo sapiens.
D. Never be able to pee outside without law enforcement being phoned.

On second thought, stay in the city so we can enjoy one less person out west.

In my experience Americans living in or visiting Europe are one of the nicest people I’ve met (I’ve met people ages about 25-65). There’s a whole different ‘vibe’ you sense. I can’t put my finger on it but it’s a very positive one. Or as a commenter here described it as ‘optimistic like children’. On the other hand Americans are very serious when it comes to important issues and values.

“In my experience Americans living in or visiting Europe are one of the nicest people I’ve met”

This sample is self-selected.Someone visiting the craddle of western civilization must be a nice person.Even if he comes from its grave.

And it is as self-selected as Europeans on this site who are anti-anti-American.Afaik, this is an American website, running on an American server, named after an American inventor, writer and whatever else he’s been doing.

Something more on-topic: The singularity university calls itself University, does it do the things a normal University does?

Anyway: Each knows from their personal experience whether he and the people he knows are nice or not.And that’s what matters.Despite the claims to the contrary, made by dubious strangers on the internet.

I’m afraid you’re right. You seldom see the high-fructose corn syrup supermodels abroad. I suppose one can spot the “most adapted” specimens only in their native habitat. X?D

Well, it only proves that self-selection really works! And that there are nice Americans. I raise my glass (of natural spring water) to you, nice, self-selected Americans! May you all live until the Singularity!

I like it. This friendly takeover (IMHO) combines the very different strengths of the two organizations. I believe it will prove to be a major step in helping to prepare all of us for the unprecidented impact of ever accelerating tech leading to the Singularity.

Only in America…
In my mind the Singularity is synonymous with free enterprise and capitalism – there wouldn’t ever be one without them. Socialism withers everything it touches. Or maybe the Chinese will prove me wrong… :(

I believe this merger will be perfectly compatible with free enterprise and capitalism. SU has been very strong in encouraging new entrepreneurs to take advantage of accelerating tech with their new companies, perhaps some will notably cause more acceleration of accelerating tech.

In a month, I’ll be writing a book chapter entitled “The Inevitable Artilect War” whose central thesis I can state here in a few lines.

There is more computing capacity in a grain of sand that has been nanoteched to manipulate one bit on one atom, switching in femtoseconds, than the human brain, by a factor of a quintillion (a million trillion times). Humanity’s understanding of the principles of the functioning of the human brain is growing exponentially. Therefore it is only a question of time before humanity has to choose whether to build artilects (artificial intellects) with mental capacities trillions of trillions of times above the human level, or not. As the IQ gap between the human level, and the home robot level begins to close in the 2020s, the “Species Dominance Debate” will heat up. Preliminary surveys show that about half of humanity will not accept becoming the number two species, and when push comes to shove, will go to war to preserve human dominance. This Artilect War (which I see as virtually inevitable), with 21st century weapons, will be the most passionate in history, because this time the stake is not the survival of countries, as in 20th century wars, but the survival of the human SPECIES, and will result in billions of people being killed – gigadeath. The inability of American techies to consider the very real and very negative consequence of the rise of the artilect is alienating old world cultures profoundly, who have a much stronger sense of history and a deeper sense of how society can go badly wrong. The Europeans have their experience of WW2 and the Chinese have their experience of Mao. Americans only have their childlike optimism (e.g. we will merge with our machines in sweetness and light).

P.S. I would very much like to see the establishment of a new branch of sociology, called “Artilect Sociology” which would ask people what they think about the rise of the artilect and the prospect that humans will be superseded and whether they will tolerate that, being overtaken by artilects and cyborgs. At the moment, the theorists on the species dominance issue are arguing in the dark. We need to be informed by hard sociological data which will sharpen the debate.

I like this theory but I think it needs some ironing out. Let me try and poke holes in it and maybe help a bit with the book chapter.. =)

As the Second World War came to a close the atomic detonations sent a clear message from the US to the Soviet Union to back off its imperial fantasies. This led to the Cold War which was nevertheless quite Hot in the peripheries as the new polarities vied for ideological supremacy.
Most importantly however it led to the arms race, fundamental to which was a simple concept: Guaranteed Mutual Annihilation. Once the USSR developed its own nuclear capabilities.
Since we are still around, we must conclude von Neumann’s Game Theoretic conclusions to be incorrect. Your theory may have a chance if this is used as one of its foundations, by arguing the reason for his failure was the irrelevance, disregard — or relative insignificance — of human payoffs (and biases) considerations into the theory. (though it’s somewhat creepy to thank cognitive biases for not blowing earth out of the celestial sphere)
However, while so called artilects would indeed — conceivably — not be restrained by such weak amenities, they would also have prohibitive high costs associated with such a scenario.

With that, I believe this theory to have the potential to be one of the hardest to refute science fiction ever. And, if it come to pass (and only because), also the hardest one to prove correct. Unless of course you go out of your enhanced way in the future, just to prove me wrong =)

Thus I wish you luck in your attempt, because if you succeed it can probably be averted (which is evidence to the paradoxical nature of such a proof) and if you fail, well, everybody wins =) (which is evidence to success only arriving if there is no one left to hear the sound of it)

I praise your foresight to bring this serious issue to the public ear. Around the world people take to the streets and declare revolution for reasons much less substantial than the rise of human-dwarfing intelligences. But I don’t think ultra-intelligent AI is escapable as each superpower will believe that national security demands that they be on the forefront of AI capability. An artilect will be able to infiltrate global networks like no human and it will be unacceptable to allow other competing nations to get ahead, so an AI-arms race seems inevitable. UN sanctions on intelligence levels may not be enforceable when human level AI becomes commonplace. The intelligence caps may be 5-15% above human to allow AI to be a real advantage and formulas will have to be created that determine how to keep above-human level AI populations within a range that secures our control. Initial experiments with +50% human level, +100% human level will at first be connected to the internet with only an incoming flow and no outgoings. But as cyborgs come into existence the tolerance for higher intelligence will increase, and so long as they still look human on the outside discrimination should remain low (as if being human = being trustworthy, and here we enter the realm of simple instinct). But history never freezes and as the decades and then centuries pass the human-machine civilization will certainly become more machine and less human. In short playing with AI is like playing with fire…the fire of a sun.

Well Dr. de Garis, to me it sounds more like you desperately want it to happen rather than to wait how the situation unfolds itself in reality and objectively raise some concerns.

I personally believe it is a little bit too far-fetched to attribute human aggressions to machines who are free from biological needs and thus have no motivation to fight for these. They don’t feel pain the same way humans do, so why should they feel threatened? The real threat in my opinion comes from governments who would use AI to control and oppress “their” people.

Dr. De Garis: You have always made eloquent cases for the Artilect wars and the idea that superior beings will treat us like flies and ants and just annihilate us because we are pests.
Please beware that there is opposing thought. I have the December 1999 Scientific American where Hans Moravec discusses the future of superhuman intelligence, and believes that the artilects will adore us because–as a consequence of their superior intelligence–they will be aware of the fact that we humans gave them their consciousness.
By the way, In Transcendent Man, you say that de Garis sounds kind of “Frenchy.” Is it French, Dutch or Roman? Knowledge of language was of great consequence to my family.

What if in the meantime (around 2029) the human race is in a despair (perhaps because of the never ending economic crisis), and starts to perceive AI as our potential savior, not as our enemy?
NOTE: A few year ago, before joining European Union, most post-communist countries perceived the EU as a potential savior.

“As a European under the government of the powerhungry socialists – who apparently have the UN in their grip – I give my thanks and praise to the U.S., the last remaining land of the truly free, for this.

I’m in a New York state of mind. I think you would like it, but it’s tuff and gritty. Boston is a big college town. It breaths in and out with the changes of the school year, and always gets reinvigorated with each new year of freshmen. Philidelphia is very influenced by the foundation of the country. It still burns with the spirit of 1776. DC( Washington DC) is veryinternational but is a phony as Hollywood. Everyone pretending to be something that they aren’t. I’d get used to socialism and or communism, unless you like working. Once robots can beat us at every trick in the book, what else can we have or even hope for.

Well, I imagine that when the Singularity arrives, in the remote chance that our species survives, it won’t be called “Singularity” or “university” (future joke lines), and everything we are doing here in 2012 will sound as primitive then as grunting cave dwellers sound to us. Stick around, it’s going to be a wild (and maybe fun) ride!

Some of my closest friends are grunting cave dwellers, I’ll have you know!

It’s strange, I never talk about the Singularity in the real world – it would just be laughed at by the people I hang around with. I think even the more open-minded folk I know would raise an eyebrow at such a concept. It’s like being an early Christian in Rome – I wonder what symbol Singularitarians should draw in the sand to recognise each other?

Remote chance that we survive? I thought you were more optimistic than that! Are you of the transhumanist faith? What’s in your billion year plan? Please don’t say toasted humans!( little lol. a chuckle? Maybe a smirk?)

Ray’s newsletter is a more profound piece of journalism than his provocative novels (this is based on Penny Marshall et. al. being higher on NYTimes best seller list. to date).
Just enjoyed Ray’s hour presentation at RainyDayBooks in Kansas City and it was delightful. That is one big meat head as Terry Bisson might say.
This post admits to scrolling down to see the “editor” profile to gain a balance on where the conversation is going. Methinks it may be Ray, as his avatar, his daughter, in the ether. Already there in the ether and the body i saw Tuesday night was NOT meat, but a clone. And not a meat clone.

By the time the Singularity arrives, we will all have the technological power of large corporations at our fingertips (nanotech 3-D printers, etc.). So, either corporations will be rendered technologically obsolete, or they will be doing really difficult things. Femtotechnology, anyone?

Somehow I’m not surprised at all, that all this is occuring, out of all the countries in the world … in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

Have you Americans ever pondered, what makes you so special? Why are you like that and nobody else is?!

I mean, seriously, you are head and shoulders above the rest – and you know it :-)

Of course your efforts in the Singularity movement concern the entire human race, but developments like this make me want to shout, even though I’m not American:
GO U-S-A!
(Glancing at your Flag of Freedom on my wall.)
:-D
Don’t take this as a joke. I really mean it simply because it’s TRUE! USA-bashing is trendy where I live and people would think I’m being sarcastic. There are people in Europe and around the world who love your country and your people – the best on Earth! (You don’t need to educate me of the downsides, I’m a realist, but on the whole those aren’t failures of the U.S., the country, but of something entirely alien to it and un-American.)

Being french, I had to respond to this :). First, France is not the only and definitely not the “most socialist” state in Europe. Sweden, Finland and in many aspects Germany have bigger states. And it is very limited : I would say that mainly education and (basic) health are “paid by taxes”. That allows a lot of people (even average students) to study what they want, which is not completely wrong (would have the young Einstein had a chance in today’s american education system ? hard to tell).

Closer to the topic, the most serious opportunity that I see taking us to the singularity is the Human Brain Project, which is apparently European and will probably be funded by the EU – so indirectly by our taxes. I mean this is serious and this is a large scale project. I may be wrong, but just think about the past : Manhattan Project, ARPAnet, not to mention Sputnik and Gagarin’s Flight (achievement of a socialist state, no doubt !), even the NASA… they were all powered by governments and “big states”. Mind emulation implies so much funding that I wouldn’t be surprised if it came from some bigger organization (and not some utopia-driven horizontal network of good-willing people) : federal states (EU, US, China…), or mammoth enterprise such as Google or IBM.

Your remark about Einstein is completly wrong.Dead wrong.Or irrelevant.Because Einstein didn’t study what he wanted in the sense you imply.In the area of his achievement he was mostly an autodidact.

First, you claim some European nations have a bigger “state” than France, but I claim this isn’t true.Especially not for Germany.I guess the concept of federalism confuses the centralized French mind.

But it is also besides the point, as wiki may explain:

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy,[1] and a political philosophy advocating such a system. “Social ownership” may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, or citizen ownership of equity.

“There won’t be enough French millionaires to tax at his proposed 75% rate to finance a government that already controls 56% of French GDP. ”

Well, so what ? Yes I voted for Hollande, yes I am glad to pay 50% taxes, so that I can retire early, enjoy life and stay healthy in public hospitals, yes, yes, yes, I acknowledge entirely. And then ? If we are all happy with that ? Nobel prizes per capita are pretty much the same in the US and France, and we have one of the longest life expectancy in the world, what else can I say ? It may be a difference of philosophy then. :)
But the point I was making is about comments here saying that “singularity will be linked with entrepreneurship and free enterprise…” I think this is wrong. Entrepreneurs cannot have long term projects (even Ray writes it in his latest book : to be an inventor you have to master the timing), they need to make money sooner or later. Except big companies like IBM (Deep Blue, Watson…) or with a strong interest in transhumanism (like Google). I mean philanthropy is ok, but you cannot go that far with it. You’ll still be simulating a nematode while agencies like DARPA or the HBP will be far ahead ;)

You are avoiding my arguments: You didn’t know what socialism is, now you want to define socialism as good while skipping over this fact.

I guess this is the famous French “pride” (euphemism).And the nobel prizes outside the hard sciences are garbage, just like those related to politics.

I tell you something, our -Germany’s- nobel prices per capita are even higher than yours, and in absolute numbers almost twice as much prizes have been given to us.Per capita the “faroe islands” outdoes us all.

The highest absolute impact is what changes the world, and there you do rather poorly.Btw: If you want to take your semi-political Nobel prize as measure, the USA really outdoes you in this regard.
The US (in general) never was renowned for quality but rather for its relative size.It’s the most populous first world country.

Oh, you’re German ! I lived in Dresden for 2 years. Maybe you’re from ex-DDR ? So sorry for the misunderstanding… I definitely despise “DDR-socialism”. That was dictatorship. The meaning of this word in french is somehow “smoother” (PS = SPD). But believe me, having lived in both countries, the governments’ sizes are pretty much the same. And this north-south opposition in Europe is beside the point. The problem of southern countries is precisely the lack of government (corruption in Greece, Italy, Spain, southern France… they all avoid the taxes !). That’s why I admire countries like Germany or Sweden, where law abiding citizens prevail and there’s a sense of community. I hope we’ll overcome our differences in the near future though, because it is important to build a strong federal Europe :) Schönen Tag noch !

@Antenna:
“I hope we’ll overcome our differences in the near future though, because it is important to build a strong federal Europe”

I completely agree.

“The meaning of this word in french is somehow “smoother” (PS = SPD).”

I don’t think this is a language issue.I know enough French to read a newspaper (le figaro, online, if I feel like it- sometimes they have these interesting questionaires, where you sadly have to vote if you want to see what others thougth about the issue at hand: “Irez-vous manifester contre le mariage gay le 13 janvier ?” – “Non” ^^), non-fiction books, and most importantly, argue in online games^^

The SPD was the party making all these inconvienent decisions/ reforms in Germany, I guess the PS won’t do this in France.AFAIK, both parties don’t like each other us much as one would expect, if he solely goes by name.At leas that’s what I heard in the news.

Thanks for the compliments (I’m an American). I believe we’ve always been a very future-oriented people. Think about it. Even as far back as the American Revolution, patriots actually had the nerve to build a submarine! They couldn’t run it too long because they couldn’t manage the air problem, but…

This is why Americans dominate the science fiction genre and all published works on futurism. It doesn’t surprise me a bit that a middle aged American SF writer (Vernor Vinge) came up with the concept of the technological Singularity, just as a young American PhD student (Eric Drexler) came up with nanotechnology, and an American inventor (Ray Kurzweil) came up with the Law of Accelerating Returns.